A brand is the most important asset a business can have. It is the only true, long term differentiator of a company, and without doubt it helps businesses change and grow. But although business owners know this is true, most are still neglecting the one thing that makes a successful brand: people. Brands start and finish with people. They begin on the inside, with humans, and are ultimately delivered on the outside, to humans. People are the pillars of a company that breathe life into businesses.

Brands are not a tangible product – they are a human construct brought together by opinions, perspectives and experiences. These experiences are made up of interactions with the product, a company’s culture, its impact on the wider environment, and how it communicates. Each of these factors makes up a brand. And every touchpoint for a consumer or employee matters. It is only when these experiences are fully aligned with clear values and purpose that a brand can live to its full potential.

People form opinions of companies in the same way that they form opinions of other people: it is an informed, emotional choice as to whether they like and trust you. Your company needs to have clear values and a meaningful purpose to allow people to make these decisions.

This is even more crucial when aiming to get millennials engaged with your brand. Some might be tired of hearing about millennials’ needs, and the fact that they are more concerned with a business’ ethos and vision than their parents were. But this is the generation that companies must aspire to.

This unique generation has found its voice and is not scared to use it. Look at the recent General Election, for example. Theresa May thought she was safe, but the millennials roared and swayed the result. They weren’t prepared to stand for something they didn’t believe in.

Millennials want purpose, clarity and authenticity, and these are the qualities that must be instilled into a brand’s ethos if you want this and future generations to consider buying into your products. Millennials are the people that will champion your brand’s purpose – if you give them one.

Luxury Brands Are In Danger Of Losing American Millennials: How To Get Them Back

Deloitte, the international consulting and financial advisory firm, recently published a report on millennials and their attitudes and purchase motivations in the luxury market. Entitled “Bling it on: What makes a millennial spend more,” it examines a survey with over 1,000 millennials, aged 20-30 years, in the U.S., U.K., Italy and China who expressed an interest in luxury spending.

Many of the findings were not unexpected, such as their willingness to purchase luxury goods online and the influence of social media and brand websites as a source of information to propel their luxury purchases.

But one finding popped for me: American millennials trailed far behind the other markets in their purchases of high-end fashion or luxury goods. Over one-fourth of the American millennials report no luxury purchases of $500 or more in the last 12 months, whereas the survey average was only 16%.

This finding has significant implications for luxury brands marketing in America because consumers’ past purchase behavior is a good predictor of future behavior. If 26% of millennials who are interested in luxury goods haven’t purchased any recently, which was reported by the Bain Luxury Study, it certainly doesn’t bode well for the future of luxury brands in the U.S., the world’s largest luxury market.The U.S. also leads the world in the number of affluent consumers. Credit Suisse reports that there are 13.6 million American adults with a net worth above $1 million. That is over 40% of the world's millionaires and more than the next eight countries combined.

In Unity Marketing’s in-depth “Millennials on the Road to Affluence” study, which included both qualitative and quantitative research, we studied young people’s attitudes about luxury. Our qualitative sample was a select group of millennials having post-graduate educational levels and who are pursuing careers that will lead to high incomes, such as law, medicine and health, engineering, tech and business. One of the respondents said “Luxury is nothing but a marketers’ label” which he said meant it was overpriced.

The millennials are nothing but smart shoppers who know how to use all the tools at their disposal to find the best value when shopping. While the Deloitte study shows millennials are most motivated in their purchases by quality, followed by uniqueness, the brand name, its ethics and image did not particularly motivate them when comparing a luxury versus a more affordable alternative. Applying the descriptor “luxury” to a particular brand may well turn these young people off more than it turns them on when it comes to attracting their attention and getting them to buy.

Millennials, the much-studied generation whose behavior has seduced and puzzled luxury brands in equal measure, are no longer the sole focus for companies hoping to attract new customers: Generation Z, the label given to those born since 1995, is the latest target audience, thanks to their future purchasing power and the influence they hold over the spending of their parents and grandparents.

Unlike their older peers, who have watched technology gradually embed itself in their daily lives, members of Generation Z are known as “digital natives”: those who cannot remember what it is like to not have a cellphone permanently attached to their hand.

“This is an impulsive group who will turn adverts off, call BS really easily and hate being talked down to,” said Meridith Valiando Rojas, co-founder and chief executive of DigiTour Media, a Los Angeles-based group that has led the way in a booming events trend in live entertainment. “They know there is always something else out there as they have always had that information at their fingertips. That is hard for many brands to contend with.”

DigiTour Media hosts festivals where social media stars step out from behind their bedroom webcams and meet their teenage fan base. The festivals showcase people who have created mass followings on YouTube, Instagram and Music.ly, the lip-syncing app with over 100 million monthly users and that anyone over 21 is unlikely to have heard of. DigiTour Media group now puts on approximately 200 events a year, comprising both DigiFests (one- or two-day showcases) or DigiTours (groups of performers who rove the United States). The combined reach of the acts is 350 million people.

“It is all about bringing the internet to life — their internet to life,” said Ms. Valiando Rojas at The New York Times’s Global Leaders’ Collective conference, held in Washington this past week. A former music executive, she recognized in 2010 that there was no equivalent of a music festival on the market for younger teenagers. She also saw that when it came to hormone-fueled popularity, 21st-century social media stars had as much clout as the biggest boy bands.

“Generation Z are the most influential group of consumers right now. Whether or not they are buying luxury today, they will be tomorrow,” Ms. Valiando Rojas said. “So understanding where they think, where they go and how to advertise to them without rubbing them up the wrong way is crucial.”

That more and more people are looking for experience-led luxury purchases over products is another factor in why brands should be looking to build relationships with this demographic, both on and off their phones.

There is a distinction between Generation Z and millennials in how they behave within their social media communities. Millennials are keen to be unique, but members of Generation Z want to be popular and part of a group. Having grown up immersed in social media, members of Generation Z define their identity by how many “Likes’’ they get on Facebook or how many followers they have. They see their online personalities as extensions of themselves

“That is why these influencers are so important: Teenagers today trust these voices,” Ms. Valiando Rojas said, adding that she booked acts based on their popularity and what the followers of her company’s social media accounts suggested. She pointed to Baby Ariel (age 16), Jacob Sartorius (age 14) and the Dolan Twins (age 16) as some of the biggest names to watch.